


Brick by Brick

by agentmoppet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blow Jobs, Blue Balls, Clubbing, Communication, Communication is Sexy, Dancing, Explicit Consent, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Post-Hogwarts, consensual voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:12:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmoppet/pseuds/agentmoppet
Summary: There’s something between the two of them, something that builds beneath the smoky lights of the club and grows stronger during midnight conversations held on a rooftop high above the streets of London. But Draco wants to wait.





	Brick by Brick

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this delightful prompt:
> 
> Prompt: Draco (or Harry) is worth the wait.  
> Extra Information: Allll the blue balls! All the desperate solo wanking after a date's over. But also all the patience with the one who wants to take it slow. Patience while still also wanting the other so much they think they might die of it.  
> Squicks/dislikes: Either of them involved with anyone else.  
> Maximum Rating: Explicit
> 
> I'm faaairly certain I know who this is, but I will wait to find out with eager anticipation :) I hope the direction I took this prompt in fits with what you were hoping for! And thank you so much D for your excellent beta skills. Any final errors are my own!

_August 1st  
_

The moon had risen to its zenith, shining in through the open window and illuminating Harry’s living room far more than should be possible at two in the morning. Draco stood in one of the only shadows, just beside the doorway. Harry thought Draco might be watching him, but he couldn’t be sure—not because Draco’s face was hidden, but because Harry couldn’t bring himself to look.

“How did we get here?” Harry asked, unable to keep the awe from his voice.

He didn’t mean his flat, his living room; he meant _here_. Now. This.

“I don’t know,” Draco drawled, finally stepping into the room.

He kept a careful distance from Harry, which was nothing new. His hands were shoved into his pockets, casual and relaxed, as if he had no great desire to touch Harry, while Harry himself was filled with something hot and furious, something that reached inexorably for Draco, fighting to pull him near.

But he held back, which was also nothing new. It hurt him like a physical ache somewhere in his chest, he wanted Draco so badly. But if anyone had asked him ‘is it difficult? Are you struggling?’ the answer would have been simple: no. Never.

“Should I go?” Draco asked, hesitation in his voice.

“I’d like it if you stayed,” Harry said, reaching for the bottle of Firewhiskey he had left out the night before and Accioing two glasses from the kitchen. “But only if you want to.” He held up the bottle, raising his eyebrows in question, and waited.

Draco smiled—a hint of sun in the moonlight. “I’ll stay.”

***

_July 6th_

The club was stifling, but Harry loved it. He enjoyed coming here because it gave him a chance to pretend his childhood had been normal, that his life as a teenager had been spent clubbing and sneaking booze instead of fighting for his life. It was a chance he got so infrequently that he seized it whenever it came his way.

Occasionally, the music buzzed through him in a particular rhythm that made his mouth go dry and his eyes search for the exits, but he wasn’t the only one. He would be alone, drifting, for only a second, and then Ron would see, rest a hand on his shoulder, and together they’d come back from that hidden place inside them that was more terrifying than dying had ever been. Or Hermione’s hand would suddenly be in his, leading him onto the dance floor and holding him close until the sound of the music drowned out everything else. Or Neville would suddenly be at his side, trying to teach him how to do the jitterbug to deep house music that thudded somewhere inside his chest and laughing, laughing, until they fell in a heap on the dance floor. And he did the same for them.

Somehow, together, they had found a kind of peace out there in the Muggle world, pretending that everything was far behind them, when truthfully the war was as much a part of them as their skin, their lungs, their heart. It always would be. But when the music played, they could throw themselves into it and laugh and drink, and most of the time the rest would fade away.

But tonight, something was different. At first Harry thought he was imagining it—that his eyes were playing tricks on him and convincing him that Slytherins lurked in the shadows. Then Zabini stepped into the middle of the dance floor, parting the crowd as all eyes turned to him, and Harry knew what he was seeing was real. When his eyes caught a flash of blond hair across the room and he looked up to see Draco Malfoy staring at him, his mouth went dry in a completely different way to all the other times before.

One by one, his friends spotted the Slytherins—Malfoy, Zabini, Parkinson and Bulstrode. At first, they were on edge, convinced that the others had tracked them down to this Muggle club to cause trouble. But when the Slytherins did nothing more than drink and nod their heads in passing greeting to the Gryffindors across the crowd, it was clear they were here for the same reason: to dance, to forget.

“You all right, mate?” Ron asked him, his whiskey-soaked breath washing over Harry’s cheek as he muttered in Harry’s ear. “D’ya wanna leave?”

Harry shook his head. “They’re not bothering anyone. It’s fine.”

“Malfoy looks pretty fit,” Neville said, looking offended at the idea. “What’s he done to his hair?”

“Looks like glitter,” Hermione said, leaning across the table like the others, so that all their heads were huddled together.

It did look like glitter. His hair was longer too, just below his ears, and it was slicked back in a way wholly unlike how it had been at school. When he was younger, there hadn’t been a hair out of place. Now, it just looked… wet… not soaking, but like he’d recently stepped out of the shower, run his fingers through his hair, tousled it a bit, and then… lightly dusted it with glitter. Harry couldn’t take his eyes off it.

With a jolt, he realised Malfoy was watching him too. He quickly turned away, struggling to focus back on the conversation that had moved to how good Parkinson looked in her white jeans, and whether or not Zabini and Bulstrode were together.

“Should we talk to them?” Hermione asked.

Ron pulled a face. “Urgh. Yuck.”

Neville nodded furiously. “Let’s just keep to our side, yeah?”

Harry agreed, but his eyes kept returning to Malfoy. It didn’t escape his notice that every time he looked, Malfoy was looking at him too.

***

_August 1st_

The way Draco sipped at his whiskey reminded Harry of a late eighteenth-century Baron overlooking his lands. Or something like that. Whatever it was, it was mesmerising. He curled his fingers around the glass, his pinkie and ring finger held so lightly they were almost hovering above it, and drank in small, slow sips. His eyes roamed the room, taking in the furniture and paintings with appreciation.

“I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of man to choose bespoke furniture.” His eyes flitted up to the artwork above the chaise. “Or art—any kind of art.”

“Took me for an iKea man?”

“A what?”

“Never mind.”

Harry sipped his drink and tried not to smile. It was the first time Draco had seen his flat, and Harry was suddenly pleased with the careful choices he’d made when decorating the place. He hadn’t done it for the prestige of owning something bespoke; he’d done it because of the enjoyment he got out of supporting local artisans—wizard and muggle alike. Every time he looked at the coffee table or the ceramic bowl on top of it, he’d think of the people who made them, their lives, their stories.

And it seemed Draco appreciated that, liked it even. It had surprised him. Harry wanted to keep surprising him.

“How’s the drink?” he asked, wondering if Draco would prefer something else.

“Pleasant.” His eyes met Harry’s, their gaze heated.

Harry swallowed and shifted in his chair. Draco’s eyes dropped lower, to the slight bulge at the front of Harry’s black jeans.

“You seem tense,” Draco said with a smirk that should have been illegal.

Harry bit his tongue to keep from whimpering and shifted again. All the while, Draco never moved.

“Why don’t you take care of it?” Draco asked, as if he were proposing something as simple as removing a jacket. He took another sip of his whiskey and swiped an errant drop off his lip with his thumb.

This time Harry didn’t bother to hold back his groan. He set his glass down on a coaster—roughly hewn wood carved by a Muggle woman in Surrey—slid his hands into his jeans, palmed his hard cock, and began to stroke.

***

_July 13th_

The next time they’d seen the Slytherins, they’d all met at the bar and ordered jagerbombs to toast everyone’s good health.

“’Cept Malfoy’s,” Ron said with a grin once everyone had tossed back the shots, the liquor burning warm in Harry’s stomach. “I reckon you could do with a bit of dragonpox.”

“Dragons for the dragon?” Malfoy had drawled, leaning on the bar so that the line of his collar hung low enough that Harry could see his nipples. “How original.”

Then Zabini had dragged Ron out onto the dance floor and tried to intimidate him by grinding against his crotch, only to find that, out of the four of them, Ron did the best slut drop. The sound of Zabini’s surprised laughter rang clear across the noise of the club, breaking down the last of the walls that had tentatively been held between them all. Parkinson slung her arm around Hermione’s shoulder and led her out to dance, while Bulstrode winked at Neville and waited for him to follow.

Malfoy bought Harry a drink.

“I wouldn’t have thought the Weasel had it in him,” he commented, handing the glass over and watching as Harry took a tentative sniff. His eyebrows lifted in amusement at Harry’s expression. “You don’t drink gin?”

“Well I’m not eighty years old, for starters.”

“I’m sure you feel it, though.”

His candor took Harry by surprise, making him swallow the sharp retort he had ready. There was a dull look in Malfoy’s eyes as he stared ahead at the undulating crowd that was all too familiar; Harry had seen it in the mirror often enough.

“Older, sometimes,” he confessed.

Malfoy smiled—a cold, rueful smile—and sipped his drink.

The music shifted into something so cheerful it was obscene. Harry felt himself slipping away, his eyes unfocusing and his heart beat speeding up. His friends were all out on the dance floor—no one was around to see him, to bring him back. He turned, looking for an exit, a place to run.

Then, he felt a warm hand in his, and he turned back to see Malfoy watching him, a knowing look on his face and something else—something Harry had never thought he would see in those grey eyes: compassion.

He let Malfoy lead him onto the dance floor and draw him close, their bodies moving together. The music was wild, vibrant, but Malfoy slowed them right down until they had transformed the song into something else entirely. The obnoxious melody still rang out over the top, but they weren’t moving to that, they were dancing to some other undercurrent instead.

Everything faded away—the club, his friends, the war—until all he could see were charcoal eyes staring into his.

After a while, when his back was soaked in sweat and Malfoy’s fingers had somehow crept beneath his shirt to run slow circles around his hips, he realised he was tired. Drained. Exhausted.

Calm.

He nodded towards the table where their friends were sitting and they headed back.

“There you two are,” Hermione said, stifling a yawn. “We were just about to head to the Floos.”

There was a wizarding café not far from here. It was how they got home every night without splinching themselves, but Harry still hated taking the Floo. He preferred to wait until he was sober enough to Apparate.

“You guys head on,” he said, grabbing Ron’s abandoned water glass and draining it. “I’ll wait a bit and then Apparate from the alley.”

“You don’t like the Floo either, Potter?” Parkinson asked, rolling her eyes. “Draco says it ruins his clothes.”

Malfoy sniffed. “They come out torn and covered in soot.”

“I’m wearing white jeans, and I’ve never seen one speck of dirt on them,” she pointed out.

“You always have had lower standards,” he returned, patting her hand consolingly.

She shrieked and whacked him on the shoulder before standing up. “Right then. We’re off. See you lot next week?”

Then, everyone was standing and waving goodbye, and before Harry knew it, he was alone with Malfoy. Their eyes met, and he saw in Malfoy’s expression the same bone-deep exhaustion and satisfaction that he felt deep in his chest.

“I prefer to sober up outside,” he said slowly, wondering what was going to happen now.

Malfoy nodded and they left the low, smoky lighting of the club for the clear starlight of the back alley. No one came out here—there was a better alley around the corner that people used for smoking and getting off, full of dark corners. This one was too long, filled with rubbish bins and the sound of night creatures scurrying across the roof.

“There’s a staircase,” Malfoy said, tilting his head back to follow the line of the rusty metal fire escape that hung above their heads. “I wonder where it leads.”

“Can’t reach it though,” Harry pointed out, wrapping his arms around his stomach against the change in temperature.

It wasn’t cold outside—far from it—but it had nothing on the stifling intensity of the club.

To his surprise, Malfoy smirked and reached for him, wrapping an arm around Harry’s waist and turning them on the spot. When they reappeared on the roof, Harry staggered against Malfoy, fighting for balance as the sudden wind threatened to bowl him over.

“You could’ve splinched us!” he protested, but Malfoy only laughed and stumbled away, sitting down on the edge of roof and swinging his legs over the side of the building.

“Live a little, Potter,” Malfoy said to him when he came and sat down. “Look at the view.”

It was amazing. London stretched out before them, all bright lights and cars as small as toys. The city noise drifted up on a warm breeze that rattled through their hair, making it whip around their faces and back. But the most entrancing part of the view was sitting right beside him.

Harry stared at Malfoy, watching the way he gazed down at the city with distant interest. The dullness was still there, and Harry wondered if it was a mask—a careful shutter that hid something far more painful.

“How often do you ever just sit still, Potter?” Malfoy’s voice was so quiet, Harry barely heard it.

“Er.” He scrunched his nose up and thought. “All the time?”

“Are you sure?”

The distant lights from the city cast strange shadows on Malfoy’s face, shielding his eyes so that Harry couldn’t quite read Malfoy’s expression. Was he sure? Why wouldn’t he be sure? There were times when he did nothing for days at a time; of course he sat still.

Malfoy reached out to him, and Harry flinched in surprise and a little alarm, but Malfoy only rested a hand on Harry’s knee and pushed down with gentle pressure. Harry realised that his knee had been jiggling. With great effort, he forced himself to stop; the world lurched unpleasantly.

But Malfoy was there, gripping his knee and running gentle circles with his thumb. It was the most surreal thing Harry had ever experienced—stranger than dying. He was a little ashamed but mostly unsurprised when he felt his cock start to pay attention.

“Do you—” Harry started, trying to think of a way to phrase all the questions that were running through his head.

Do you like men? Do you want to come back with me? Do you like _me_?

But before he could figure it out, something cold crossed Malfoy’s face, and he drew his hand away.

“It’s nice out here,” Malfoy said, and it sounded like an apology.

“It is,” Harry agreed, taking the hint and allowing them both to sink back into the tentative camaraderie they had been building.

When he got home that night, he had barely shut the door before he unzipped his jeans and slid his hand into his pants, leaning back against the wall of the corridor and jerking himself off in quick, rough movements until he was coming all over his sweat-soaked shirt. It wasn’t the first time he had thought of blond hair and grey eyes while he did it, but it was the first time he had allowed himself to imagine the eyes looking back.

***

_August 1st_

“How does it feel?” Draco asked, his accent even sharper than usual as he watched Harry’s hand slide up and down the length of Harry’s cock.

“Pretty good,” Harry managed to say, his own voice choked and urgent.

“Looks like you want it faster.” Draco smirked as Harry’s hand sped up.

Harry moaned, gripping himself tighter as his fingers slid smoothly across the slick skin. He knew what was coming. He’d grown up believing that desire was best achieved through secrets and veiled meanings, but with Draco, he’d come to love the sweet torture of words—explicit declarations of intent, of desire, that somehow teased him more than any number of ambiguous gestures would. He could follow where Draco led, or he could take them in a different direction altogether—he only needed to say.

“It will feel better if you slow down,” Draco said, fingers tracing idle patterns across the arm of his chair.

Harry bit back another groan and slowed down.

***

_July 20th_

Harry knew Malfoy wasn’t interested in him. He had made that abundantly clear with the way he retreated every time Harry made an advance. So, Harry contented himself with keeping a friendly distance the next time they met—dancing together, hands touching, guiding, communicating in the noisy club with a purely platonic intimacy.

When they ended up out in the alley again after everyone had left, and Malfoy turned to him with eyes so heated that Harry stumbled backwards in surprise, he wondered what the fuck he’d missed. Then, just as quickly, the expression was gone.

He warred with the idea of just ignoring it, of pretending he hadn’t noticed and waiting to see if anything came of it without his interference, but he’d had enough of letting everyone else lead him around. He wanted an answer.

“I’d really love to take you home, Malfoy,” he said, quietly smirking at the way Malfoy’s eyes went wide with shock. “But I can’t tell if you’re interested. Help me out?”

Malfoy gaped at him, for some reason unsure of how to answer. Harry was just about ready to take it as a ‘no’ and reassure Malfoy that he was still happy to be friends, or whatever the hell they were, when Malfoy pulled himself together and visibly relaxed.

“Of course I’m interested, Potter,” he said carefully.

Harry waited. It wasn’t a ‘no’, but it was far from a ‘yes’.

“But I don’t think I quite want… Could we just keep things as they are for now?” His cheeks—already flushed from exertion—turned pinker. “I want to get to know you.”

They had never really done that, had they? He knew how Malfoy played quidditch, what he looked like when he was taunting someone, even what he looked like when he was terrified for his life, but he didn’t really _know_ him.

He smiled at Malfoy, warmth rushing through him at the relieved smile Malfoy returned. “Me too,” he admitted, feeling like he had somehow confessed something far more intimate.

Then, he took Malfoy’s hand and Apparated them onto the roof.

The moon was almost full, banishing all but the most secretive of shadows from the night. Harry took in the lines of Malfoy’s face, the harshness of his cheek bones and chin, the way his neck caved in the centre before rippling into sharp collar bones beneath the sheer line of his shirt. All those years of watching him, and he had never noticed how beautiful he was.

Malfoy pretended not to realise that Harry was watching but angled his face towards him all the same, allowing Harry to drink his fill of the sight. And when Harry turned away, he felt Malfoy’s eyes on him as well, saw Malfoy’s head tilt as his eyes traced a slow path down Harry’s body and up again. Something inside him shivered and ached for more, but he remembered what Malfoy had said and remained still. Somehow, that small decision to wait made it even more delicious—knowing that Malfoy wanted him, knowing that he wanted Malfoy right back, knowing that the two of them were building something together beneath these city lights.

It was intoxicating, too, not knowing what that something would be or how it would look when it finally arrived.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Malfoy asked suddenly.

Harry turned to him and saw starlight reflected in his eyes.

“I’ve only ever wanted to be an Auror.”

“No. Before that. Before… magic.”

Harry drew in a breath. Malfoy was watching him with hungry eyes, and Harry no longer knew if it was for his body or for the words he was saying or if it was just for him… just him.

“A fire fighter,” he said, not looking away. Someone shrieked with laughter on one of the floors far below them, the sound carried up on wind that tasted like smoke. “My aunt and uncle used to tell me that my parents had died in a car crash—a horrible wreck of cars and flames—and I thought… I thought if I was a fire fighter, maybe I could have saved them.”

Malfoy’s eyebrows lifted. “Potter, you wouldn’t have been alive. Or barely, at least.”

The words held amusement, but no malice. It was like the war had sucked all of the hate out of him and left someone new in its place. Bizarrely, Harry found himself hoping some of Malfoy’s bite still remained.

He snorted. “No. Well. It was just a dream.”

There was a cricket somewhere on the roof. It sung loudly and with relish, unconcerned with the lack of response from any of its fellows.

“I dreamed of being a dancer.”

A surprised laugh escaped Harry’s lips, and when he looked up to see Malfoy smirking sheepishly, he couldn’t stop. Soon, Malfoy joined him, the sound carrying clear and bright across the roofs of London.

“You don’t think I could be a dancer? That’s rude, Potter.”

The memory of Malfoy grinding against him in the club hit Harry with the force of a bludger. He stopped laughing. He remembered the way the strobe lights reflected off the glitter in Malfoy’s hair, making him shimmer, almost like he was under water, though the way he danced was anything but slow. Malfoy moved like he was fighting—sharp, certain, full of barely restrained fury. It was nothing like any of the professional dancers he had seen, who seemed so calm and graceful.

“I’m just surprised. Dancing is so gentle.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Harry bit his lip to avoid commenting on the innuendo, but then he looked up and saw the heat in Malfoy’s eyes, and he realised with a jolt that Malfoy was flirting with him.

Harry smiled slowly. “Do you have a preference?”

“Depends on my mood.”

Malfoy’s eyes dropped to Harry’s mouth, and he bit his lip, but neither of them made a move for the other. It was somehow more intimate than if they had been kissing. Warmth spread through Harry’s body, filling him with sweet anticipation for what might come, tonight or some other night in the future.

But even as the warmth spread lower, his cock hardening, he didn’t feel a need to rush anything. Malfoy had made it clear what he wanted and what he didn’t, and there was something about these moments together that made Harry hesitant to change anything too soon. These two nights they had spent together, long past midnight on a roof in the middle of London, felt somehow removed from time, from history. It felt like something was changing, something bigger than the two of them.

“That looks uncomfortable,” Malfoy said with a smirk, staring unashamed at Harry’s growing erection.

Harry huffed a laugh, his cheeks suddenly hot. “A bit.”

He was surprised that Malfoy was so bold when he was so hesitant to sleep with Harry, but he liked it.

“Do you think of me when you go home?” Malfoy’s gaze was intense, so there was no possibility of Harry mistaking his meaning.

His breath hitched and for a moment he didn’t know how to respond. But they had come this far on a strange truce of openness and truth; why stop now?

“Yeah. I barely made it through the door last week.”

Malfoy made a noise—shocked, a little awed. His eyes were wide, a tinge of pink rising on his cheeks.

“Do you think of me?” Harry asked.

Malfoy swallowed. “Quite often. Sometimes at Hogwarts, too.”

Harry’s stomach swooped, his erection suddenly straining against the front of his jeans. “Me too,” he admitted, his voice raspy.

They fell into silence, only broken by the cricket that still chirped in the background, though now he was joined by another, and the two sang in tandem.

“I think I’m sober now,” Malfoy said after a while, stretching his arms above his head before he stood up. “Will I see you next week?”

“Definitely.” Harry stood too, checking he still had his wand.

Just before he Disapparated, Malfoy winked at him and blew him a kiss.

Harry managed to make it all the way to the shower this time, though the memory of that wink had spilling over onto the tiles, moaning and thrusting into his hand, within seconds.

***

_August 1st_

“Tell me what to do,” Harry demanded, shuddering as another wave of pleasure coursed through him. “Please.”

“Are you sure?” Draco asked, hiding his smile behind his glass. “You look like you’re doing a fine job of it yourself.”

“I like it when you talk to me.”

“Oh, Harry. I never knew you had a fetish for aristocracy. Does my accent make you tremor?”

The way he rolled the word tremor over his tongue made Harry weak, but he only smiled and said, “Bite me.”

“If you’re good.”

Harry gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head as his cock began to pulse in his hand, growing slicker and somehow harder as he stroked it and sent white ribbons of come shooting across his stomach. All the while, Draco watched, eyes dark and heated as he whispered quiet praise under his breath.

***

_July 27th_

Malfoy wasn’t a virgin. Far from it.

Harry had simply assumed he was. Malfoy was so hesitant, so unsure about taking things quickly, that he had just taken it as fact that Malfoy was unexperienced. So, when he overheard Zabini and Parkinson laughing about one of Malfoy’s old conquests who was apparently trying to win him back via a drunken strip tease on the other side of the club, his mind went strangely fuzzy and blank.

He turned to watch, and found they were correct—a brunette who looked a couple of years older than them, maybe twenty-one, was currently grinding up against Malfoy and undoing his buttons in what he probably thought was a very seductive manner. Malfoy was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised and an amused smirk on his face. Harry noted distantly that he didn’t seem impressed, but neither was he flustered or upset.

Something white-hot and painful settled deep in Harry’s stomach, fuelled by years of loneliness and the deep-seated belief that he wasn’t—never would be—good enough. He had thought Malfoy wanted him, that he was new to all of it and just wanted to take things slow. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe Malfoy didn’t care very much, and he didn’t want to take Harry home because he knew he would regret it in the morning.

Harry tossed back the gin that Malfoy had bought him twenty minutes ago—it burned on the way down—and left.

Half an hour later, Malfoy found him on the roof.

“Potter,” he said warily, coming to sit beside him on the edge. “Are you sulking?”

“I’m nineteen, Malfoy,” Harry said, swinging his legs idly so that his heels thunked back against the brickwork. “I don’t sulk.”

“Ah,” Malfoy nodded. “So this is a performance piece then? Day in the life of a toddler, perhaps? Very good. Where’s your collection tin? I’ll give you a knut.” He emphasised the last word.

Harry snorted and looked up to see Malfoy smirking wickedly at him.

“Are you sure _you’re_ not the child?” Harry asked, unable to keep from smiling.

Then he remembered why he was out here, and the smile fell away. Malfoy continued to watch him, brow furrowed in confusion.

“I thought you were a virgin,” Harry blurted out, and realised it was precisely the wrong thing to say when Malfoy’s eyebrows shot up incredulously. “Not that it matters,” he hurried to add. “I meant I’m confused.”

“Bit late in the game for that isn’t it?” Malfoy shot, acid in his tone. “The way I hear it, you’ve fucked your way through half the wizards in London. If you’re still confused after that, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Well that’s fucking rich,” Harry snapped back, both furious that Malfoy had been so quick to attack and indecently pleased that Malfoy wasn’t all soft edges these days. “That guy was practically rutting against you back there, and you looked like it was just another dull afternoon.”

“Maybe it is. Worried you can’t keep up?”

“Keep up with what? Sitting in fucking silence? Yeah, that’s really taxing.”

He knew instantly he’d gone too far. Malfoy’s expression closed off, and he leaned back. All too quickly, the cold, haughty Malfoy he’d known through school returned—it was the first time he’d seen him since the war. A shiver ran down his spine.

“I didn’t know that’s how you felt,” Malfoy said, and he stood up. “All that Gryffindor rot is just a cover, isn’t it? There’s nothing noble about you, after all. You can’t even respect someone’s choices without making it all about you and how terribly difficult it is to wait, can you?”

Harry gaped at him, but he’d already turned away, was just about to Apparate and then Harry would have lost everything. He latched hold of the only thing he could: the truth.

“I was hurt.”

Malfoy paused, turning blank grey eyes back to him. The silence was waiting to be filled, so Harry filled it.

“I just assumed you wanted to take things slowly because you were nervous, so when I heard Zabini and Parkinson talking and realised you, er, likely wouldn’t be nervous at all, I didn’t know why you didn’t want me.” The words stuck in his throat, and he realised for the first time just how true they were. He choked a little as he repeated them. “I just thought you didn’t want me.”

Malfoy’s veneer broke, and Harry saw a glimpse of what was beneath: surprise, warmth, desire. Perhaps something else, hidden deep behind the others.

Malfoy turned back completely and came to stand in front of him, so close he could feel warm breath ghosting across his cheek.

“I want you,” Malfoy said simply, and it was so open, so free of double meaning or confusion, that Harry momentarily lost his breath. Malfoy kept speaking. “I want you spread out in front of me, naked and dripping. I want you on your knees. I want you on your back, my mouth around your cock, and the sound of your begging in my ears.”

Malfoy wasn’t touching him, but Harry could feel every word like a caress on his skin. Malfoy’s eyes were alight with desire, so deep and warm that it was all Harry could do not to lean forward and kiss him.

Malfoy sighed, the force of the exhalation hitting Harry in a wave of peppermint and gin. “The reason I’m choosing not to take you home is because I’m very, very good at fucking people, Potter.” The words sank into Harry’s brain and made him dizzy. He forced himself to keep listening. “What I’m not good at is everything else: being vulnerable, being intimate.”

 _Making love_. The words remained unsaid, but Harry heard them all the same, felt them somewhere deep in his chest that ached to return them.

“When I fuck people, I lose them,” he continued. “I’m selfish. I get bored. I don’t want to do that with you.” He paused. “I want this to mean something, Harry.”

For a tiny, excruciating moment, the loneliness inside him opened wide, the ache in his chest so strong he wanted to keel over from the pain of it. It spread through him, and somehow as it did, it eased. It was still there, but open now—seen, heard, acknowledged.

“Me too,” he said, and meant it more than he thought he had meant anything in his life.

Malfoy’s lips curved into something that was half smile, half smirk, and all Draco.

“You know, though,” Malfoy drawled, the words slow and thoughtful. “It doesn’t mean that you have to wait, just because I am.”

Harry stared at him, not comprehending. Malfoy’s eyes dropped to Harry’s hips, between his thighs.

“It looks uncomfortable,” he said, the words an echo of the last time they had been here, but suggesting something entirely different.

Harry moaned, the sound longer and lower than he intended. As Malfoy settled back on the ground, leaning against the door in the middle of the roof with his long legs stretched in front of him, Harry found a place to stand. He leaned against a tall metal box in front of Malfoy—it probably held the power for the building—spread his legs, and unzipped his fly.

The second he wrapped his hands around his cock, he was gone. Malfoy’s eyes met his, dropped lower to where Harry was palming himself, and suddenly Harry could feel the weight of that gaze like hands on his skin. It was electrifying. He bit down on the knuckles of his left hand and closed his eyes, focusing on the way his fingers slid slowly up and down over skin that was slick with pre-come.

The elastic of his boxers snapped against his knuckles; he hadn’t pulled them all the way down. He wondered if Malfoy could even really see what he was doing, and then he wondered whether he wanted him to or not. What if Malfoy didn’t like what he saw?

Then, he felt the tingle of someone else’s magic washing over him as his boxers and jeans slid slowly down his thighs. His eyes snapped open to the sight of Malfoy’s wand pointed at him. For a moment, an instinctive jolt of fear ran through him, but then he saw the way Malfoy’s pupils were blown wide with lust. There was a pink flush riding high on his cheeks, and his lips were parted so that his breath could come heavy and uninhibited as he watched Harry touch himself.

“Is that all right?” Malfoy asked softly, his wand still hovering in case Harry wanted him to undo it.

Harry nodded furiously, gasping as his hand ran across the tip of his cock, twisting around the sensitive head. Malfoy smiled a little crookedly, his breath coming quick and shallow, and lowered his wand.

It was crazy how turned on Harry was. He’d never had this with a partner before. Whenever he fucked someone, it had always been a confusing mess of guessing—what do you want? Is that good? Are you being honest or are you just trying to impress me because I kind of saved the world that one time?

It had been easier to just turn the lights out and trust in the moans of pleasure, hope it was real, but this was different. He knew what Malfoy wanted, knew it from where his eyes landed, the way his breath hitched—knew it because Malfoy had fucking told him, loud and clear, without any opportunity for misunderstandings. And Malfoy knew what Harry wanted too, because, well, Harry was the one doing it. He was showing Malfoy just how he liked it.

He hadn’t even touched Malfoy, and Malfoy was already proving to be the best partner Harry had ever had.

“Has anyone else ever seen you do this?” Malfoy asked, breathless.

Harry shook his head. “They’ve hardly seen me at all, even when we’re fucking,” he confessed, thinking of dark rooms and blurry, drunken hook ups.

Malfoy gasped then, and the pure delight in the sound had Harry coming, coming all over his fingers and shirt while Malfoy watched, his eyes dark in the moonlight.

***

_August 1st_

When Harry opened his eyes again, something had changed. He hadn’t dared hope that when Draco had agreed to come back tonight, it might mean anything. As far as he knew, they were simply adjourning to somewhere more private, continuing the celebrations in comfort.

But Draco was watching him with a fierce resolution, his body simultaneously relaxed and full of new tension, and Harry knew that he had made up his mind.

A horrible thought occurred to him. “You’re not doing this as a birthday present, are you?” He asked, knowing even as he said it that the thought was ludicrous.

Draco snorted, some of the tension visibly seeping away. “It’s not your birthday anymore. Don’t be daft.”

Then Draco stood, crossed the room, and kissed him. His lips were gentle at first, questioning, waiting. When Harry’s hand—his left hand, still clean and dry—slid to the back of Draco’s neck and tugged him closer, Draco stopped holding back.

He straddled Harry, Vanishing the mess of with a wave of his hand and sliding their mouths together with unbridled desire. He kissed like it was the first time, like it was the last time, and Harry drowned in it without ever thinking to come up for air.

“Your face,” Draco murmured against his lips, making no sense. “When you come, it’s—”

He broke off and pulled away, the moonlight striking his face in just such a way that he looked struck with awe. And then Harry realised he was, and the thought made Harry’s stomach flip with something he’d never felt before.

“I want to make you feel like that,” Draco finished, leaning forward to kiss him again, slow and languid.

“You do,” Harry mumbled into his mouth, but he wasn’t sure that Draco heard him.

Still, he knew that Draco understood. It was in the tightness of his hands, the urgency of his lips and tongue, the desperate groans that kept spilling from his throat. And if Draco somehow missed all that, it was in his words as he said it again and again, mouthed it against Draco’s skin, his neck, his collarbone.

“Not yet,” Draco insisted, and began to unbutton Harry’s shirt.

***

_July 31st_

Harry decided not to drink on his birthday. He had a single shot to celebrate with others—Gryffindors and Slytherins together, somehow merged into one big group—and then cut himself off. He found he preferred it that way. He could focus on the sensations of Malfoy’s fingers brushing against his hips when they danced, the look in his eyes when he caught Harry watching.

The sounds of the club faded around them, giving way to the intoxicating thrall of sweat and a bassline that thudded somewhere in their chest. Malfoy’s hands lifted up, playing with his hair, teasing him, and Harry responded by keeping his hands firmly to himself—teasing Malfoy in an entirely different way.

Malfoy’s eyes flashed with desire, and they moved together, not as one, but mirrored. He leaned forward to whisper in Harry’s ear.

“When I finally take you home, Potter, I want to devour you.”

Harry gasped, but Malfoy continued, relentless.

“I want to take you apart inch by inch, trace every part of you with my fingers, my mouth. I want to suck you, lick you, taste you. How does that sound?”

Harry swallowed, took a deep breath. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said airily, struggling to sound normal and not like he was in the middle of an orgasm. “All right, I suppose.”

Malfoy laughed, the sound low and rasping. “I think you’ll like it.”

“I think I might.”

Harry pulled back and checked his watch. The others had long since gone home, wishing him a happy birthday and hugging him close—even Parkinson, who he’d noted with a grin had gone home with Ron and Hermione.

“I’m getting tired,” he said, glancing up at Malfoy who was watching him with languid interest. “Did you want to come back to mine? I can Apparate now. No obligation, of course. We can just have a quiet drink.”

Malfoy smiled and nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

Harry grinned and led the way across the club. “Let’s go, Malfoy.”

“Call me Draco.”

***

_August 1st_

Draco peeled back Harry’s shirt and pressed slow kisses to Harry’s neck.

“About all those things you promised,” Harry murmured, fighting to concentrate on the words. “Are they still on the table?”

“A _table_ , Harry? How kinky. Excellent idea.”

With a sweep of his hand, he knocked everything off the coffee table and lay back on it. Harry choked back a laugh that quickly turned into something like a sob as Draco began unbuttoning his shirt, letting it fall away from his pale shoulders and leaving acres of skin in its wake. With another flick of his hand, this time with magic, he Vanished his trousers and boxers.

It was a long table, crafted from a cross-section of some enormous log that had been struck by lightning, the gaps in the grain filled in with resin. It was just the right length for Draco to sprawl back on it with his thighs spread.

Harry fell to his knees between them, running his hands along Draco’s calves, his thighs, his hips, and waited for permission.

“I want your mouth,” Draco said, his voice husky, and Harry obeyed.

He lowered his hands to Draco’s thighs again, spreading them a little and licking a long stripe along the underside of Draco’s hard cock. The answering moan nearly sent him over the edge, and he licked again, and then again, and then drew the tip into his mouth to gently suck while Draco begged him to stop teasing.

With one hand, he gripped the base of Draco’s cock while the other drew idle patterns beneath, along the curve of his arse, and he stopped teasing. Draco’s back arched off the table as Harry slid lower down, caressing Draco with his lips and tongue, sucking gently at the tip and then sliding back down.

Then part of him began to panic—Draco had said he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to fuck; he wanted to be intimate and vulnerable. All this time he had been waiting for Draco to be ready, and he suddenly realised he had no idea how to do that, himself.

He pulled off, looking up at Draco with mild alarm and fear, but the sight before him made him stop. Draco’s eyes were closed, his mouth slack with pleasure and his eyebrows drawn together with desire. He was waiting, arms behind his head, legs spilling over the side of the table as he lay with complete abandon.

It was like nothing Harry had ever seen. Familiar, but different. He lowered his head and placed a kiss on Draco’s inner thigh, listened to the answering gasp of breath. He did it again, and again, for the simple pleasure of hearing Draco sigh, for the slight smile on his lips, for the hand that reached down to thread fingers through Harry’s hair, stroking him like a promise.

Then the hand was guiding him, drawing him back and pushing him lightly onto the floor. Draco hovered over him, eyes heavy-lidded with desire but warm with something else, something more than lust, as he undid Harry’s fly and pulled his jeans slowly down. Harry’s head fell back at the sensation of Draco’s lips closing over him, and his world narrowed to the subtle give and take of their wordless conversation. His hand guided Draco faster, slower, softer, while Draco’s lips answered him eagerly, willingly.

And then he added words, because he could, because he wanted to, even if they didn’t mean anything.

“Please, faster. Just like that. God, Draco, just like that.”

Draco did, and then he slowed down and pulled back, running a thumb across his lip and glancing down at Harry with a wicked smile. He Accio’d a bottle from his trousers, and held it questioningly in the air.

Harry nodded, and, with meticulous grace, Draco uncorked the bottle and poured it over Harry’s cock. It was warm and viscous, like oil, and Harry barely had time to register the pleasant tingle of it before Draco lowered himself over Harry, wrapped his hand around both of them and pumped slowly.

Harry cried out, his eyes fluttering shut and his head rolling back as Draco let go for a moment and simply ground against his hip with a moan. The slick slide of their bodies together, the intimacy of Draco’s arms caged around him, was almost too much, and he knew he wasn’t going to last long. He opened his eyes and found Draco watching him, not just with open desire, but with love—warm, bright, and clear.

Harry’s mouth fell open, and Draco lowered down to kiss him, moving his lips gently, giving Harry time and space to move up into him as well. Harry could feel his orgasm building, tightening in his stomach and lower, growing and growing as he pushed up to meet Draco’s steady thrusts, pushing against the dip of his hips, his stomach. Every so often Draco’s cock brushed against his, hard and slick, and every time it did, Draco would moan into his mouth, his careful control momentarily abandoned. Then, Draco took them both back into his hand and slid his fingers up and down, faster than before.

For a while, there was nothing but the sound of gentle whimpers and breathy sighs. Harry's awareness was narrowed right down to the sensation of Draco's strong fingers gripping him, sliding against his cock with slow reverence. And then the world came rushing back with glorious heat when Draco stiffened and gasped, dropping his head to mouth at Harry’s neck as he came. Harry cried out—realised that maybe he’d been crying out for a long time, that maybe he was actually a good deal louder than he had intended—and thrust upward into Draco's hand, sliding against oil and the increasing wetness of Draco’s come until he was spilling over too.

He searched blindly for Draco’s lips, kissing him and grabbing the back of his neck to pull him closer, kiss him harder, deeper. They were still pressed together, the sensitivity making them both whimper, but neither of them made any move to break apart. When Draco finally pulled away to breathe, Harry looked down and realised he had run his hands through Draco’s hair so much, they were both covered in glitter, their sweat-soaked skin shimmering in the moonlight like water.

He waved his hand and cleared up the mess but left the glitter. He liked the way Draco looked with his cheekbones glistening and the hollow of his neck shining like diamonds.

“Worth the wait?” Draco asked as he rolled onto his back, his voice heavy with exhaustion and satisfaction.

“That’s a stupid question,” Harry said bluntly. “I haven’t been hanging around because I’m _waiting_. Every moment with you is amazing.”

Draco blinked in surprise, momentarily taken aback.

“Was it what you were waiting for?” Harry asked before Draco had recovered himself.

The words were quiet, serious; they both knew what he was asking. _Did it mean anything?_

“Yes,” he said, the word simple and honest.

It was the sweetest sound Harry had ever heard.

The moonlight washed over the two of them, casting away the shadows as Draco watched him, his face open with warmth.

He still wasn’t entirely sure how they had gotten here, to this. When he thought about the individual moments that had led here, it didn’t add up. A few conversations under the stars, a dance or two, fingers on skin—it was an equation that didn’t make sense. But perhaps it had always been something more. Draco viewed it as waiting, but Harry didn’t see it like that. Waiting was passive and stagnant; they had been building something different, something new.

Harry turned to him and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> How I approached consent in this fic:
> 
> I really loved this prompt, and I hope to god I did it justice. I tried to approach the need for consent largely as something that doesn’t always have an obvious explanation. A lot of times, consent is treated as something that’s necessary when a person isn’t feeling turned on, or isn’t experienced with sex and wants to take things slow. That’s wonderful too, and essential, but I wanted to explore how sometimes a person is turned on and comfortable—kinky, even—but still doesn’t want to take action. There are many reasons why someone might not consent to a situation, and I wanted to use the characters in this story to show a situation where they’re both horny af and well experienced, but are hesitant to step forward because Malfoy doesn’t consent to the intimacy of the connection yet—because it’s something he’s not familiar with and he doesn’t want to screw up.
> 
> On a more micro level, I tried to focus on good communication and how sexy it can be. Which is really hard, because half the time I wanted their inner monologue to say things like “he spoke so clearly and communicated so succinctly, it got me wild”, which is distinctly unsexy. (Although it has been pointed out to me by the friend that beta’d this that they can absolutely picture Hermione saying this about Ron, and now I kind of need that to exist.) But anyway, I think I managed to get around that and hopefully highlight the ways that open communication is breathtakingly intimate and so, so sexy. It’s about letting down the walls and knowing you’re finally being heard. It’s about seeing and being seen. It’s about vulnerability, and knowing that vulnerability won’t be betrayed. I hope that came through.


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